


this is Oxford

by guardianoffun



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Episode: s0702 Raga, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22762981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianoffun/pseuds/guardianoffun
Summary: This isn't Venice, this is Oxford. Things are supposed to be different here.Series 7 episode 2 reaction piece and also spoilers
Relationships: Endeavour Morse/Violetta
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	this is Oxford

**Author's Note:**

> idk wtf this is. i just really, really, really likes that last scene of morse and violetta snogging up against a wall okay. these . words kinda just happened. idk. enjoy?

He does try to resist he does. Rolls whiskey round his mouth to stop himself saying  _ yes, let’s see each other again _ . Tries not to remember the way her hair falls about her shoulders, how if he pulls at her clip it will tumble down in waves. He looks Ludo in the eye and tells him he’s a lucky man with a wife so beautiful, tries to put himself in the shoes of a man he likes enough not to destroy. It’s only Ludo’s words echoing round his head that stop him scooping her up there and then in the study. 

When she calls him, he’s already thinking of her. Of her breath on his shoulder, her lips on his chest, her hands and her nails claiming every part of him. He thinks of satin nightdresses and light cotton bedsheets, of the mild warmth Venice had, the promise of more just around the corner. Then her voice on the phone is in his ear like it was all those months ago. It fills his ears, like a sickly sweet treacle, reminds him of hot, heavy words in his ear and legs around his shoulders. But he pushes it away, because Venice was Venice and this is now, this is Oxford, things are different here. New Years was a haze of constant wine and food and music, like some sort of far-off dream like world. The rules were different, but this is home. This is England, it’s Oxford with it’s roaring winds and humid summers, it’s nights with overcast skies and rain so cold it reminds you you’re alive. 

It’s different here. It can’t be the same. 

He tells himself the only reason he’s going is because she sounds scared. 

He shouldn’t get into her car, but the thought of letting her into his is dangerous. So he climbs in and she tries, oh does she try. Whether intentional or not, she flashes those eyes at him and blinks slow, and by God he wants her. 

She asks him. He says he doesn’t. He wishes it were true. She’s talking as if he’s some great thing, her lost piece of some grand lifelong puzzle. As if she would give up everything for him. He thinks back to Claudine. To Monica. To Joan, Susan. He thinks of all the times he has been willing to throw it all in, in the name of love. 

He wonders if she feels for him the way he fell for them. In the sort of way that ruins your life because you spend every minute wondering, every second planning out a life that always seems  _ just  _ out of grasp. He remembers the heartache and the falling, the slow rebuilding after it all falls down and he thinks about Violetta, of her doing that. 

But she has Ludo. She has her happy ending. She’d be leaving her life of money and travel and luxury for what? An unfinished house and a sergeants wages. He hasn’t the skill for much more than policing, perhaps teaching but the salary isn’t much better. He’s nothing to offer in terms of a husband. 

There he is again, thoughts spiralling out a mile a minute - husband already. He’s known her not even a month all told. You add up the hours they’ve spent together in the same space, it barely adds up to a fortnight really. Yet he’d do it. He’d been willing to do it for Joan, and they actually had a chance.

He’d even face Ludo’s wrath, if that’s what it brought. It wasn’t like he cared for him all that much. It was nice to be wanted was all. Ludo didn’t look at him with pity like Strange or Thursday did, he understood him. Talked opera and art with him. But he’d lose it all if she’d promise the same. 

But then the wind rattles the car window and he remembers they’re in Oxford. His turf, not hers. He’s a life here that for all it’s winding, he likes. Violetta was a fantasy, still is. Venice was a mistake, or in the very least a moment of weakness. He won’t have another. 

He climbs out of the car without her lipstick on his collar and feels he has settled things once and for all. 

Then it’s work and murder and Thursday and the boyfriend and harassment charges, it’s clutter in his mind that keeps him occupied even when the record spins out and he’s chewing on his pen over a puzzle, and then the door goes. He can tell what’s coming even as his hand reaches the door, can tell her silhouette through the warped glass. He knows the minute she crosses the threshold it will all change. It can’t, it shouldn’t, but it will. 

She’s dressed like she did one night in his room, a different dress but just as much of her skin peeking out, all the parts of her she must know drive him wild. She pushes in and he pulls back, but she’s up against his chest and there’s a lump in his throat. 

Her fingers trail up his arm, and he holds up a hand and good God their hands fit together so well. So he crumbles, lets resolve fall to the wayside because her lips are on his, his hand around her waist, pressing hard against her back.

He was right, this isn’t Italy. This isn’t the slow, gentle love-making of a magical city; this is needy, wanting and fiery. This is teeth bashing and fingers pulling, it’s fingers raking through hair and groans cut short by playful tongues. It’s her hands at his hips, his on her chest. It’s his mouth on hers, her legs tripping him up as they stagger upstairs. It’s her knocking him up against the wall, them not making it to the bed. It’s him panting against her neck as he bends her over his bed, her mouth a sweet pair of swollen lips crying his name as he remembers every night in Italy, every touch of her. 

This isn't then, this is now. This is a change in the air, the end of a storm, or perhaps the start of a new one. 

**Author's Note:**

> ???? morse big dumb bisexual. same.


End file.
